N.S. grandmother learns 'coin' she inherited as a child actually a rare participant's medal from first Olympics

For 56 years, Vicky Fitzgerald kept the weighty “coin,” no bigger than a silver dollar, tucked away in a locked box. She knew that piece of bronze was special, she just didn’t know how special.

In the thick of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the mystery has been solved: It’s a rare participant’s medal from the first ever modern Olympic games held in Athens, Greece. It’s a piece of Olympic history.

And now the Nova Scotia grandmother of four needs to make a tough call — does she keep the medal as the precious family heirloom she’s always considered it to be? Or does she donate it to the United States Olympic Committee, which is urging her to add it to their archive collection?

“It’s overwhelming,” Mrs. Fitzgerald told the National Post from her home in Yarmouth County, N.S., on Monday.

“Everybody’s giving me advice.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald was only seven years-old when she found the medal — always called a “coin” in her family — in a pair of pants that had been sent in a care package from her great aunt Lillian in Wakefield, Mass. Her parents offered to return it, but the aunt said she knew nothing about it and that Mrs. Fitzgerald ought to have it — finder’s keepers.

The Fitzgeralds were always pretty sure the medal was connected with the Olympics — the second Greek word etched into the bronze made that fairly clear.

“We were never 100% sure,” she said. “But I am now.”

After reaching out to a local reporter, Mrs. Fitzgerald and her family eventually learned of its significance — and how sought after it would be.

The medal bears the date of 1906, which fell between the 1904 games in St. Louis and the 1908 games in London. The hardware actually dates back to the summer of 1896, but was a leftover participants’ medal forwarded on to the 1906 games, which were never officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

The U.S.’s Olympic Committee archivist Teresa Hedgpeth told CTV that “is an oversight that needs to be corrected.” The donation of the medal would “be one step in that direction.”

“If Vicki donated the medal to us, it would become the Vicky Fitzgerald Collection in the USOC Archives,” she told CTV Atlantic’s Jayson Baxter, adding that they don’t have a similar medal in their archives.

There have been family meetings about the medal, still locked in a box. A private collector has offered Mrs. Fitzgerald US$1,100.

“We’ve all spoken about it — if you give it to one of the grandsons, which range in age from 14-9, maybe one of them will get jealous,” said her daughter, Sara Fitzgerald.

She thinks Mrs. Fitzgerald is leaning towards donating it.

“At least if it’s there, she knows it’s safe,” she said.

But Mrs. Fitzgerald appears to be torn.

“It was never my intention to be rid of the medal or to sell it or to give it away to anybody,” she said.

She remembers her father coming over to her house next door before he died 14 years ago and teasing her, saying, “Vicky, do you still have that coin from Greece? I bet you don’t know where it is.” But Mrs. Fitzgerald quickly produced it and placed it in his hand.

“He said, ‘Vicky, mom and I are not going to know what this is before we die, but you will before you die.’